Beware Of The Yin Police

WEBVTT

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi, Janice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: welcome. If you’re new around here to a yin yoga, podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are a familiar welcome back.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: i’m honored that you have returned.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Today’s topic

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is was sparked by some things I often see in Yan Yoga, Facebook groups which a lot of these episodes are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll see something. I’ll see a question. I’ll see a statement, and I’ll be like that would be a great episode.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So this topic is about

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not being the Yin Police.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or, more specifically, today, what makes a yin yoga pose a yin yoga pose?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And what makes a pose? Not a yin yoga pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And who are we to police that anyways.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I will share some opinions and thoughts as well as some stories with you about that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But if you’ve ever wondered.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is that a yin pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I didn’t see this post

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in my Paul Grilly book, but I see it on the Yin website. Is that a yin pose? And this episode is for you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So before we get into that, just a reminder, my dear friends, that if you are new around here, or if you’ve just forgotten that I have the soul of a mermaid, but the mouth of a sailor. So if you have small people around.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: take a moment to grab some headphones, because you can expect adult subject matter and adult language.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The other thing I wanted to do before we hop right into it is just read a podcast review.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I am so grateful for those of you that take the time

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Nyk Danu Yoga: which probably takes like 2 min, whether you’re in apple or spotify to pop in and give me 5 stars, and on apple you can do a written review as well. So for those of you that have done that. Thank you so much.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it really really helps the podcast grow.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the algorithm tells the algorithm that this is important to people.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so it helps podcast growth. But also, it helps to let me know that I’m on the right track.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Because as much as I absolutely love doing this, podcast it is a labor of love. It’s a hell of a lot of work like a hell of a lot of work.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And

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Nyk Danu Yoga: seeing those reviews, or when you message me on Instagram or anything like that. It really really does help not only the podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: show up more in the algorithm, but it also helps me when it’s, you know, late in the night. And I’m making social media graphics on Canva. It helps me to know that this podcast is helpful to you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I’m going to read one of those.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and before I do and do that, though

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I just want to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I’m going to read one of those. But before I do that, I also just want to mention

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that I would love your topic ideas.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll give you a little secret.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: When I 1st was considering starting this, podcast the thing I was the most afraid of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: wasn’t like, how do I record it? How do I edit it? Although I knew none of that I had to learn it all and figure it out. It wasn’t putting myself out there per se. It was.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What if I run out of things to talk about

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Nyk Danu Yoga: dun dun dun.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So, my friends, you can help me with this.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you have a question.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or a quandary, or a thought or a confusion about yin Yoga and yin adjacent subjects that affect our yin Yoga practice and teaching. Please let me know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you’re on spotify. You can leave comments. Now I think comments or questions I can’t remember which one it is. If you are not on spotify, you can just find me on Instagram

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Nyk Danu Yoga: at Nick Danu Yoga, or at Yin Yoga Podcast and send me a DM. Let me know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what your questions, quandaries, confusions, thoughts, are, or subjects that you would love to see covered on the pod, and if I am qualified to speak on it, I will do an episode, and if I’m not, I will try to hunt down somebody who is and bring them on as a guest.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so please. If you have not rated the show and you’ve been listening repeatedly, please take a moment, dear friends, if you wouldn’t mind

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to just go into whatever app you’re listening to this on and give it 5 stars, and if you’re on apple, you can leave a written review as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’d be super grateful. And here is one that I got

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Nyk Danu Yoga: recently.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, one more thing to mention is, I just found out that if you are an itunes user and you live nowhere near me, like, if you’re like on the other side of the world.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t see those in my app. So I have to actually kind of make, like a special investigation every quarter to see all of those. So if you’ve left one, and I haven’t read it, it’s because I haven’t seen it yet.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so not to worry, though it will happen.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is by Jenny C. Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and she says, an absolute gem.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I binged both seasons of this. Podcast.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I found this podcast just as I fell in love with Yin

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as a Yoga teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I had taken a 20 h yin training and left with so many questions.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This podcast filled in so many gaps.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I decided to sign up for next fall training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that would be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the time. If you’re listening to this live. That would be the training that’s going to start soon. Well, it will have started by the time you hear this.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: All right. Thank you so much, Jenny

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and if you are interested in learning more about my therapeutic in training my 60 h, or if you’ve been listening for a while, and you think hmm! I think I might find that course in my future.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Just go into the show notes and click the link that says, Get on the wait list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Look! When you’re on the page. Look all the way up

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you’ll see my photograph and a button, or all the way down at the bottom. There’s another opportunity there to enter your name and email, or if you wait long enough, you’ll have a little polite pop up that’ll slide in from the side. And you can add your name and email there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So if you were looking for more yin training, if you’ve been listening to my point of view on yin, and you’ve been intrigued, this is something that you’d like to do. Please join the wait list. That is the best way to find out when registration opens. You also get a whole bunch of gifties from me along the way you’re gonna get videos and sequences and music. And they’ll get these podcast episodes. And then when registration opens, you are going to get 1st 1st stab at register registration.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then when registration opens, you’re going to get the 1st chance to register, because I will let everybody on the wait list, know, before I start putting it all over the socials and things like that, and you’ll also have access. The 1st 5 people that sign up that are on the wait list will get a discount code. So that will be something that you’ll have access to as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, let’s get into today’s topic. So let’s start with a little bit of story, time or history for those of you that are maybe newer teachers or not so familiar with Yen.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So my teacher, Paul Grilly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: was introduced to Yin Yoga by a man named Polly Zinc. Now I know that this might get a little confusing, because we got a poly and a paul.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so Poly zinc is actually a martial artist.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and Paul Grilly, my teacher, had seen him on I think it was like a Pbs or something, had seen him at competing at an event, and was amazed and taken by his flexibility.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And you know, this is before the Internet, so it probably took him some work, but tracked Polly down and then started going for about a year or so to some of his

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Nyk Danu Yoga: classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now Paul went to the the Yin component, the stretching component, and then didn’t necessarily stay for the martial arts part.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I want to mention that as just a little bit of a history.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, I have not studied with poly zinc, but I have watched a lot of his videos, and I have some of his Dvds.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And you will notice if you watch his work, what he calls his yin flows are very different than what my teacher Paul Grilly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: teaches as yin poses.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I just want to point that out

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that even within yin’s history

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we have differences right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so then, Paul, you know, after studying with Polly, for a little bit, starts adding some of this yin

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Nyk Danu Yoga: likeness or these yin poses to his teaching

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and eventually develops a reputation as being a Yin teacher. In the beginning they were calling it Taoist Yoga, because that is what Polly was calling it. And then eventually, when he had a book that was getting ready to come out.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They changed it to Yin Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because that actually felt more accurate. I believe the story goes that him and Sarah Powers had some conversations about it. Really, they were only teaching the

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Nyk Danu Yoga: sort of still, quiet, long held pose part. They weren’t teaching the martial arts, and so they felt like calling it Yin Yoga would be more accurate.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s a brief little history lesson for those of you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: who are newer to yin circles.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now

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Nyk Danu Yoga: let’s add on to this little story, shall we? So then Paul goes around and he starts, you know, doing his thing and traveling around and teaching yin, and you know, eventually it takes on some popularity. Slowly but surely this quiet style of Yoga gets more and more popular, and then he starts, you know, traveling around when the book comes out, and you know, doing his presentation with the anatomy stuff, and then the Yin and eventually starts training teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then let’s fast forward just slightly. So Paul was doing that for several years before I joined one of his teacher trainings.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and when I did, my very 1st teacher training with

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Paul. I absolutely loved the training. It was so

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Nyk Danu Yoga: magical, both being there with him and Susie. They’re just such amazing teachers and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: phenomenal space holders and facilitators. Just beautiful great salt of the Earth people

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Nyk Danu Yoga: who are both incredibly wise and have a good spiritual practice, and at the same time are hysterical, which is always a plus for me to be able to bridge both of those worlds. Can we be deep and have these philosophical conversations, and crack a joke right and keep it real.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So while I was studying with them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I loved it. It was great. So this was my very 1st training with him. Well, my 1st teacher training my 1st 100 HI had already been at a workshop with Paul in 2,007 when he was doing his tour he came to the city I was living in at the time to Calgary, so I’d already done like a weekend workshop with him. But this was my 1st

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Nyk Danu Yoga: actual teacher, training module with him.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and we did the module, and I fell in love, and I went home, and I was practicing it, and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know I just kept feeling like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as much as I loved the practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Something was missing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s like from my waist down was getting all the sweet juiciness of this beautiful yin practice, of the spaciousness in my body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I was getting that nervous system response. I was getting the still and quiet sort of meditative space, but

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it was just like from my waist down.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and as somebody who was a former hairstylist.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I got some really tight shoulders, upper back, neck, etc. Even used to have wrist issues thankfully. Those are gone so like forearm tightness, all the things right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I just naturally started gravitating towards

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Nyk Danu Yoga: putting

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that yin theory and yin information that I had learned with Paul and my study into how could I do some of these poses that I know for my upper body in a yin way. How can I take these poses that I know that are really helpful, that I’ve learned in my Hatha practice, even in other practices.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That have been really helpful for my body. But can I do them in a yin way

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so meaning, instead of just wrapping my arms up together for

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 4 breaths or 5 breaths.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: could I do that for a couple of minutes? What would that feel like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so this is this, began my exploration into the upper body in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I started practicing with several poses, and I’m not going to mention them all, because there’s a boatload of them for the upper body and doing them in a yin way, and I’ll describe what a yin pose might be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: later on in the episodes. If you keep saying, what do you mean in a yin way?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll I’ll talk about that in a moment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: started doing that started adding those in with my students. So this was after my very 1st 100 h with Paul.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I then went back and did 4 more 100 h trainings with him.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I have 5 in total.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then the next time I went back. So for my second, for my 200 h. One of the things that I loved about pulse training was that we didn’t ask questions

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Nyk Danu Yoga: at the time of lecture unless it was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just a point of clarity on what he just said. Right? So questions. We had a question box.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you would write your little question on it. You would go, put it in the question box. And then in the evenings we would have Q. And A. Times, and Paul would pull questions out of the box, and he would answer your questions.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And one of the questions that I had was

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Nyk Danu Yoga: exactly this.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m finding that for myself and for my students like the upper body part is kind of lacking in a yin practice. Why aren’t there upper body Yin poses that you’re teaching us?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And the answer was quite simply

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that him and Susie didn’t feel like it was necessary in their own bodies.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So in their personal

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Nyk Danu Yoga: physical practices.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: probably because they’ve been Yogis for so long and been doing it for so long as an occupation. They didn’t have that massive tight traps, shoulders, upper back, neck stuff going on.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and so it didn’t feel necessary for them

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to include the upper body. That was the answer that Paul and Susie Grilly gave me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It just didn’t say it was as necessary. However, then very next thing they said is, but if you find that helpful for you and your students, you should absolutely do that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so this is not the 1st time

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this was the 1st time, but it was not the last time that Paul Grilly gave me permission to change something that I have learned from him

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that it suits my needs and my students needs. The second was languaging, and that was the one that was in my 500 h talked about that in another episode on on trauma.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but that’s where

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I started feeling conflicted with some of the words that I was taught Indian and was talking to him about that. And he said to me, You should just use whatever words work for you and your students.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, so

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I want to bring this up. This. I wanted to set the stage with this story before we get into sort of the meat of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what even is a yin pose. What makes a yin pose yin.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because I have noticed that there is a lot of yin policing going on.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: another thing to mention is that there were probably

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Nyk Danu Yoga: several of us that we’re studying with Paul, that we’re also taking this knowledge that we were learning from him about Yin, and then experimenting with upper body stuff because it just is logical.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There are. There is someone that goes around saying that they were the 1st to introduce upper body stuff in Yin, which is frankly a ridiculous statement, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: since you can’t, unless you have psychic powers and you can see the whole wide world, you have no idea if you were the 1st

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to, you know, add in upper body stuff, and the reason that I know that you were not the first, st or that you are responsible for introducing the whole yin world to these upper body shapes is because I hadn’t even met you, and I was already doing them so didn’t know who you were.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There were no Yin Facebook groups back then. Didn’t. I’d never studied with this teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They weren’t there for the 1st 400 of my Yin trainings. I did meet this teacher finally at the last training. So no, not responsible for my using the upper body and yin together

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just to say that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the reason that I bring this up is because I think that in any kind of a community we can tend to get dogmatic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and this is one of the things that Paul is definitely against. He even mentions it at the end of his episode.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that, you know, we need to think for ourselves

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that we need to use critical thinking would not be dogmatic about things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So when I said to Paul and, Susie, why don’t you include stuff for the upper body when so many people are really sore and tight there? And wouldn’t the fascia of the upper body also benefit from this practice. They didn’t put their proverbial fist down and say, No.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yin yoga poses are only from the waist down, and you shall not deviate from that path. No, they did not do that, because that would have been

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Nyk Danu Yoga: well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that would have been the last time I studied with them, because I’m not down with the dogma. Instead, they explained why they didn’t and said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but you should sally forth and do what is right for you and your students.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: One thing that they did say is that the fascia in the upper body is not as dense and sturdy, and sort of like many layered as it is in the lower body, so that the poses for the upper body might not need as much time

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as the lower body, in order to experience the same benefits. So that was one sort of qualifier that they gave.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then the very next time I went to study with them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we did all the same poses, no upper body stuff, although this and here’s the thing. The students, though

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Paul is not at all attached to us, following his exact lesson plan. So if you were to look around the room in that yin training you’d see all kinds of cool yin shapes that weren’t originally taught per se

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Nyk Danu Yoga: by Paul to us.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So he’s very open to us making this practice

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Nyk Danu Yoga: our own.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I just wanted to mention all of that before we get into

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what makes a yin pose yin.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because there’s a whole lot of people going around saying blank blank is not a yin pose, or this is not a yin post. Now I do have some opinions on a couple of poses, and I’ll I’ll mention those in a moment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But if you are going around dogmatically, saying, this is not a yin pose based on your teacher training because it wasn’t included in your teacher training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s not accurate

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Nyk Danu Yoga: now, saying.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t teach that pose

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: blah blah blah, whatever your reasons are for not teaching it totally fine.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but going around and saying, That’s not a yin pose, especially when it’s clearly listed in Paul’s book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and also on Bernie Clark’s book and Bernie Clark’s website. And those 2 books are kind of you know, known as the the Holy Grail of Yin, so to speak, or the the Yin Bibles, and if the pose is clearly listed in there, but then you’re going around saying, it’s not a yin pose. Why.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you could say

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t teach that pose in my yin classes, and here’s why that’s totally fair accurate legit, but saying it’s not a yin pose when clearly

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it is. That’s a

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just, not skillful, in my opinion.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s kind of what sparked this. So then

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what does make a yin pose?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, I’m glad that you asked. So, according to my training and experience with Paul Grilly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a yin pose would have some of these characteristics in it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it would be something that you would be able to

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Nyk Danu Yoga: hold in stillness.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It would be floor based.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that you would be able to comfortably hold in stillness

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for a set amount of time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 2 min, 3 min, 5 min, so floor based.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that you’re able to hold in stillness for a duration of time anywhere, I guess, between 2 and 5 min or longer longer is fine, too.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that actually opens it up a lot

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you think it looking at all of the Yoga poses you’ve ever been introduced to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and the only 2 parameters are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Is it floor based?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And can I hold it, or my students hold it in stillness for a yin amount of time? You can see how that just opens it up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So yes, we have our Yin family of poses that are in the books, but then we also have our extended family, our cousins, our aunts, our uncles, our second cousins.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: our half cousins, etc, etc.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now there are a couple of poses that I’ll talk about in just a moment. That are a little bit exceptional, or where there has been mention of. And I’ll talk about those in a moment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But what this does is when you say, Okay, if a yin pose. If for something to be a yin pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it needs to be floor-based.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you need to be able to get into it and hold it comfortably for minutes at a time. You can see how that opens up

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the yin pose repertoire

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a lot.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, one thing I also want to mention is that way back, when.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in the beginning, in the before times when I was studying with Paul.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: he didn’t have these archetypes

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yet

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Nyk Danu Yoga: he was just teaching us a pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: He had a name for the pose, and we, of course, were welcome to find any variation of it that worked for us, including using props. So for those of you who think that props aren’t part of yin. Nay, nay, I say

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Nyk Danu Yoga: they are absolutely part of yen for some people and some bodies in some poses.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And there’s a whole episode that will have gone live before that. That I did with Addie D. Hilster about props.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So just because there’s no props in the pictures in the book doesn’t mean we don’t use props in yet, but you can listen to that other episode if you’re still like, wait what we’re allowed to use props.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: getting into shape.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: holding it for the duration of time, maybe using props to get comfortable enough to be able to hold it for the duration of time, or, in my case, actually, a lot of this, the stuff that I do the prop itself is creating the shape. So a lot of the poses that I do, you actually can’t do without props, because it’s the prop that is putting your body into the shape. Okay? So I just wanted to mention

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a little bit of that history

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that, according to Paul Grilly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this whole, that’s not again post policing thing

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Nyk Danu Yoga: would be a lack of critical thinking. He wants us.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as Yoga practitioners, to stop and think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Does that make sense? Does that work for me for my students to put some thought in it, not to just dogmatically regurgitate

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what your teachers told you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and this, in my opinion, this should happen for every style of Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, honor, respect, and love, and cherish your teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and take what they teach you, and study it and see. Does this fit

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so, for example.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if I had just said, well, I mean.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, there’s no upper body stuff in Paul’s book or in our training, and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I guess we’re not allowed to do yin for our upper body. If I had never felt

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Nyk Danu Yoga: comfortable enough to play with my own body and play with these props, and to start doing some of these poses in a yin way.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would be missing out, and so would my students. By the way.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on a whole chunk of what I practice and teach now, and what I train teachers with.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Paul’s got no issue.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Paul and Susie don’t care if we make this practice our own. In fact, there’s a reason why Paul has refused to trademark it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and this is probably one of them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I just want to mention that that when you’re tempted to say blank is not a yin pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Just pause.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now I will say that there are certain things that are definitely not yin posts

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Nyk Danu Yoga: inversions. For example, like headstand, shoulder stand, etc. Right? So when I say floor based, I don’t just mean just your head or your hands are on the floor like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: half of your body or your whole body is on the earth. So I would say, those are exceptions.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I often joke with my students in class, because for some reason, especially former vinyasa. Students really have trouble getting into Swan without doing downward dog. It’s like it’s like a a wiring in their brain.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 1st comes the downward dog, then comes the swan pose. Must. Those 2 must always go together? They totally don’t. By the way, I have all kinds of ways to get people into Swan and out of Swan that require no dogs at all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I’ll often joke with those students and say, well, I mean, technically speaking, downward dog isn’t a yin pose, but I won’t tell the Yin police if you want to transition through downward dog. Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I hope that that’s a little bit more clear. Yes, there are poses that we could definitely say aren’t yet.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but by their nature, by the physical effort it takes to maintain them, because yin again, remember, floor based relaxed

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Nyk Danu Yoga: stillness long holds. So what makes a yin pose yin

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Nyk Danu Yoga: floor-based, relaxed

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Nyk Danu Yoga: stillness

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Nyk Danu Yoga: long holds one more time for people in the cheap seat

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Nyk Danu Yoga: floor based

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Nyk Danu Yoga: relaxed

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Nyk Danu Yoga: stillness. Long. Hold!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s the recipe for what makes a pose. Yin.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now I want to mention a couple of poses that kind of are are often shown in yin circles which are kind of in the gray areas.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So first, st I want to talk about dangling, if you’re not familiar with dangling, dangling is essentially like Uttanasan, standing forward, fold in a really relaxed way, where your torso is just kind of hanging your hands may be, you know, sort of on your elbows, or you may be fingertips on the ground, or whatever with the arms it’s relevant

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Nyk Danu Yoga: now. It’s often put in yin sequences, and it’s, I believe, probably in in Bernie’s book, although I’d have to double check that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But dangling from my own training and experience wasn’t really taught as a yin pose per se. I’m doing. Air quotes here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but it was taught as an alternative to people whose bone structures won’t allow them to do something like caterpillar.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So depending on your bone structure, some people, if they sit in caterpillar, the way that their pelvis is built, they actually can’t hinge forward to fold over their legs, or same thing goes with dragonfly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so for those people, if they can’t hinge out of their pelvis when they’re in a seated posture in order to fold over their legs to get the benefits of that pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then sometimes Paul would suggest a wall with the legs on the wall. But for anyone who’s been doing yoga for quite a while, they’re not necessarily going to feel a stretch in the back of their body or in their legs with their legs just straight up a wall. And so that’s where dangling comes in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So sometimes for those folks that you know really just their body doesn’t work well in seated forward folds. Then dangling was introduced as an alternative.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I don’t teach dangling in my yin classes, because, in my opinion, for my classes and my students, it’s not a yin pose

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that being said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I teach folks that are usually pretty tight, so if they needed a reverse option, I just flip them on their back

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to change the orientation of their pelvis.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and if they really couldn’t feel it, regardless of those 2 options. Then I would coach that one person. Hey, let’s try this out. Let’s go into dangling.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and sometimes dangling was taught at a wall, and I believe some people call that elephant where actually you take

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you come close to the wall, but you’re facing the wall, and then you do your forward fold, and you you’re actually putting your back on the wall. So the wall is kind of holding you into position.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You could also do the same in dangling with your legs so you could back it right up to the wall.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then fold forward, and then that way it becomes a bit more passive, a bit more relaxed because you’re using the wall for support.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you don’t have to engage your legs and your upper body to kind of keep you in place, because dangling is a great option for people who don’t have any other option, because nothing else is working for them, but it’s certainly not going to be as relaxing

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or as

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Nyk Danu Yoga: comfortable as a seated forward fold.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Because they have to use more muscles.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So again relaxed

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Nyk Danu Yoga: muscles is one of the keys to yin. So one way around that is to use the wall, either for the back of your body, so to bring your butt and your legs up to the wall, so that you can kind of lean into it, and then just hang yourself forward.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or to do the opposite, to bring yourself facing the wall and fold forward and use the wall to hold your back into position.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So again, that’s just one of the few kind of exceptions I’ll often see dangling, just sort of thrown in like it is a air quotes in pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and according to my training. And my, this is just my opinion. Dangling isn’t

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Nyk Danu Yoga: technically us a yin pose, but it’s used often in a yin class as an exception for people who can’t do seated forward folds due to their bone structure. So if I was teaching a yin class and someone stood up and they moved over to a wall, and they started doing dangling. Would I walk over like the Yin police and say, That is a yin pose? Of course not. That’s ridiculous.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We need these practices to be adaptable

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to the bodies and the people that are in front of us. Right? We need to be able to modify them and change them and shift them to suit the needs of the individual.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s I just wanted to mention. Dangling is sort of an honorable mention.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: As to me, not really a yin pose, but often used in yen for people who need it, and I know that some teachers teach it as a air quotes yin pose, and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s the that’s the that’s for them. Great. I just personally don’t consider it very yin like in nature. I don’t feel very relaxed when I’m doing that pose because I gotta hold myself into position.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s where a wall can be helpful.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The other thing I want to mention is camel pose. Now, when I did, my training with Paul Camel Pose was definitely part of the yin repertoire, and I believe it’s still, even in his his book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I always thought that was strange, because I don’t know very many people that can relax into camel pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, unless you’ve got like a piece of furniture or something to support you. You’re using a lot of your muscles to hold you into that position so that you don’t end up doing too much because of gravity.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, if you’ve ever witnessed Paul’s wife, Suzy, do, Camel, she’s very much comfortably just hanging out in camel, but Susie has a remarkable body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and she’s also a former dancer. So probably not a representation of the average Joe that you’re going to teach in your class.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I don’t really consider camel a yin pose. I don’t do camel in my classes, my yin classes at all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But it is listed in Paul’s book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I I know that Bernie even had a conversation with him when Bernie was kind of redoing his information, his book, and his information where he said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know that to Paul that he wanted to take Camel out as a as a yin pose, because he just didn’t think it was yin for, like most people, and guess what Paul was fine with that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because Paul is not dogmatic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: those are the 2 meant that mention.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So those are the 2 I wanted to mention dangling and camel that I’ll often see kind of in yin groups Indian circles that I don’t personally consider yin like in nature.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: However, some people maybe, can just effortlessly hang out in camel.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that’s not strenuous to them at all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Very rare, I would say, but some people can

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so again. Not a yin pose to me, and not for the majority of the population could that pose be done in a yin way.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who can, I mean? Obviously Paul’s wife, Susie, can.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve seen her do it?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then dangling to me again, often used in yin circles. I don’t really love it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t really love calling that a yin pose, but I do like it as an alternative in the end for people who can’t do seated forward folds, especially if I get them to use a wall, either to bring their legs to the wall or their upper half to the wall.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That being said, dangling could be a great transition pose. If you’re moving. If you’re doing a class that’s a yin yang class, if you’re doing a movement into stillness, class dangling might be a great transition pose. In fact, it would be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to move from moving, moving, moving into slowly moving into longer hold, stillness and floor based postures.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I did a whole episode on

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yin Yang Yoga, so we won’t talk about that right now. But that just know that that could be a great pivot pose to pivot from moving to stillness or the other way around. If you started in stillness, maybe you get somebody up into dangling, you let them hang out there for a while, and then, because they’re standing, that now moves you into your standing flow.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So great transition pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I just personally don’t find it. Nor would my students find dangling very yin like, unless you’re using the support of a wall, and so I would still use it. I just wouldn’t do a long hold like I wouldn’t do a 5 min dangling might do 2 min.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Also we have to think about blood pressure

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in poses like that, especially those that have low blood pressure. They’re going to need to come up slowly from a standing forward fold, especially if it was a long hold.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They may have to bend their knees 1st also, not a great pose for some folks with some back conditions. To be standing in a rounded forward fold that way. I’ve talked about that in a whole other episode on Yin Yoga for spine health, so you can check that out if that is

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Nyk Danu Yoga: interesting to you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So overall. I wanted to keep this episode fairly brief.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I just wanted to encourage us as a community of Yin practitioners and yin teachers to stop this yin policing stuff.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Stop saying, this is not a yin post. Stop saying, that’s wrong, because I did my training with Paul, or I did my training with Bernie, and it’s not in their book or their material. So that means that’s wrong.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Can we please stop this stuff.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What makes a yin pose? Yin

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is floor-based

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Nyk Danu Yoga: stillness.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The ability to do long holds

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and passive right? So not engaging your muscles.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if whatever shape it is, fits into that criteria.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it’s a yin pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: where this came up. I was meaning to do this episode eventually, anyways, but where this was sparked recently was somebody in a group saying that child’s pose was not a yin yoga pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and despite the fact that it is in Paul’s book. And it’s also listed on Paul on Bernie’s website. I don’t know. So I was like, Where where did this idea come from? And apparently her teachers

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Nyk Danu Yoga: who were trained apparently by Paul again. I don’t know, these teachers said that child’s pose is not again pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and her argument was that a lot of people find child’s post difficult. And she’s right. Actually, a lot of people are not comfortable in child’s posts at all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And yes, there’s ways that we can prop child’s pose to make it more comfortable for people, maybe using bolsters or blankets. Those are options. Also, an alternative could be to flip people on their back and get them to hug their knees into their chest. So if your intention for putting child’s pose in the sequence was to gently round the spine that could be an option.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But just because some people don’t find child’s pose accessible doesn’t mean that we remove the pose

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Nyk Danu Yoga: from our category of yin teaching poses. There is somebody on the planet that will find every single Yin pose inaccessible.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There are people that will find a good chunk of the Yin posts inaccessible, based on their own bone structure or injuries or things that are going on with them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That doesn’t mean that those aren’t yin posts.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that doesn’t mean that we need to pull them out of our our little teaching repertoire because they don’t work for some people.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s our job as teachers to learn how to modify those poses

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and to choose variations of those poses to help people who they’re not a good fit for, and if they’re still just not a good fit.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’ve tried a couple of things, and it’s just not a good fit. Then you give them something else

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with the same intention.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right. So a common example would be sleeping. Swan. There’s a lot of people that will never be able to do sleeping, Swan, and it doesn’t matter how many bolsters you put under their torso. How many blocks you put under their butt? It’s just not going to work for them, either because of their knee or something else going on in their body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so, you know, sure we can try a couple of prop variations. You could try this. You could try that. Okay, that’s not working for you. Let’s flip you on your back and do what’s commonly called figure 4. But what I call keyhole.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And now that person’s able to access the insane po insane, intended area in a pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but without the pressure on their knee or whatever else is going on.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Notice. I didn’t say, Oh, Sleeping Swan is not a yin pose, because a lot of people can’t do it. A lot of people can’t access it, so it’s now no longer a yin pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s ludicrous.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, some people can’t do sleeping, Swan thankfully. We have a whole bunch of poses that will access their hip butt it, band. We don’t have to be attached to it, looking like Sleeping Swan.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you have students that can’t do child’s pose, find something else for them to do like, perhaps lay on their back and hug their knees into their chest, or give them some props, or give them some other way to gently round their spine forward doesn’t mean that we need to remove child’s pose from the yin repertoire just because some people can’t do it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you did that we’d have no yen posts left, because there are some people that can’t do pretty much any posts.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I wanted to mention the story of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how yin kind of came to be right. So Paul studied with Polly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then Paul started teaching in, adding poses that he knew already from his Hatha Yoga experience and doing them in a yin way, in combination with some of what Polly had taught him. And Paul, my teacher, Mr. Paul Greeley, goes to start training teachers. Teachers start practicing this with their own body and going. Hmm! Something feels missing here, and they start adding, in

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, poses for the upper body or variations of things, or using props in ways that maybe Paul hadn’t taught us, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we’re allowed to do that because Paul wants us to use our critical thinking, think for ourselves, and do what serves us in our community.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Fancy that!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I really wanted to mention

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that this whole policing in yen thing is frankly not a very yin attitude.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now that being said, I am a yin purist.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: meaning

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t like mixing restorative. And yen, I don’t like mixing, you know, cacao and Yen, if you want to do these things, you party on with yourself talking about my own stuff here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know I do sometimes teach yin and yang together so movement into stillness. But like I’m not teach, I’m not adding a bunch of bells and whistles to my yin in that sense I’m a yin purist, but what I’m not a yin purist about is what the shapes are you’re making with your body and which ones you choose to use for your students.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you can hold them

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on the floor in stillness, with relaxed state.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: whether that’s using props or not for the duration of time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That sounds like in to me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, my friends, I think that this one was part educational, part rent

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I hope that you found this helpful, and you know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I have now learned from experience when anyone says Blank is not a yin pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Don’t bother engaging them if they’re going to bother making that statement publicly. It doesn’t matter how much evidence you give them to the contrary. They’re going to dogmatically stick to their opinion and police the yin poses.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s it for me. On this one. I hope that you found this helpful

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and just let the Yin police, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: be frustrated on their own, and we can do what works best for us and our students

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as long as we have an understanding of Yin Yoga

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Nyk Danu Yoga: an understanding of what these Yin Yoga poses are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and we’re adapting those for the people that are in front of us that day. Then we’re doing great.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The other thing I just want to very briefly touch on before I I

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Nyk Danu Yoga: close this episode out.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I don’t want to go into it in depth, because again, there’s a whole episode on that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that will have come out already on Yin Yoga with props. But sometimes people think as soon as you start laying around on a bolster or blocks, that you’re now no longer doing. Yin, and you’re doing restorative. That is not true.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It may or may not be true, depending on the body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And again, there are other episodes on that. So I’m not going to go into that in depth. I did a whole episode on what is the difference between Yin and restorative?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then Addie D. Hilster and I, which will come out in this season. Before this episode did an episode on props, and why they’re they are totally part of begin practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you can listen to those 2 if you want more clarification on that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But you know, if someone’s laying their body over a bolster that does not automatically make it a restorative pose, and as I mentioned, some of the Yin poses that I teach my students very regularly, and that they love the most.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: are not part of the original

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yin poses that were in a book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They were me taking props and playing with my body

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and doing shapes that I loved, especially some of them were influenced by restorative poses, but I took out all the extra support. So they’re not restorative anymore. But they’re actually feeling a sensation in my body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then I started doing those with students. And I’m not alone in that. There’s several of Paul’s

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Nyk Danu Yoga: teacher trainees who include upper body

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Asanas in there yet.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, my friends.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: thank you so much for your time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and until I talk to you again next time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: bye, for now.